


Reign

by Archaema



Series: The Hellhounds' Odyssey [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Anubis!Pharah, F/F, Hellhounds, I Couldn't Possibly Let Them Not End Up Together Honestly, Imp!Mercy, Lots of Bittersweet Moments, Pharmercy, Probably a Bittersweet End Eventually, angst and hurt, devil!Mercy, tags to be added as required, witch!mercy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 05:07:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16340372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archaema/pseuds/Archaema
Summary: Long ago, Angela Zeiger sacrificed everything she knew to try and bring her and her beloved together.In a distant past, Fareeha Amari mourned a woman who was lost, but not truly dead.Anubis and the Imp will destroy anything that stands between them or tries to hurt them - What will that cost the world?How many souls will it take to satiate them?- Descension, Book 2 -





	Reign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleep brings memories of distant, dark things, and the secrets the Imp guard's closely start to be exposed to Anubis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on this for I don't know how long, but I finally figured out how I want it to go. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Fareeha Amari opened her eyes.

It was the first time since… she could not recall.

Even with them open, though, she found only a faint glow that illuminated nothing. The nothing shifted, writhing against itself, to be replaced by soft green grass. She could feel it between her bare toes, a hint of dew teasing her skin.

And for once, she felt herself free of the other half of her soul. Anubis, the essence of a god that was irreconcilably merged with her spirit, seemed to be peacefully at rest. It was quiet, like an early morning meadow.

The pain came to her as she examined the simple rolling hills the grass covered. She found herself limping, clutching her arm tightly against herself. She dared not look down at the wounds she knew were carved into her body, but she could feel that there were places terribly rent. It made her squint, but the distant sun peaking over the hills gave her the motivation to walk forward.

Forward, to a single tree set atop the small hill she had found herself when she awoke. At first, Fareeha thought it was the sunlight beginning to filter through the leaves that was guiding her, but she saw something, she saw someone, leaning against the trunk of the tree.

There was no mistaking the woman she saw. The golden hair, the robes with fringe and dressing of fiery yellow and orange against white, the staff propped against her shoulder as eyes locked on her. Brilliant blue eyes that Fareeha swore were purer than the sky, that she had longed to look into for decades of her life.

“Fareeha!” Angela scrambled to her feet, pulling herself up with her staff. A slight limp held her gait back as she crossed the few feet toward Fareeha, but if there was pain she scarcely showed it.

“I don’t believe it,” Fareeha whispered, wincing in pain but throwing her arms around Angela just the same, the pain the furthest thing from her mind as they pressed against each other so fiercely that they fell onto the ground, shielded from the sun only by the broad reach of the tree’s shade.

“I didn’t think-“ Angela gasped out. Fareeha could feel her face buried against her neck, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed without restraint against her. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again!”

“I told you I’d see you again,” Fareeha said, managing a cocky smirk through the pain her body seemed to find at almost every turn. “Angela, I don’t know-“

“Don’t ask questions, please, don’t ask how,” Angela managed, fingers curling against the wounded woman alongside her. “I’m afraid it’s a dream, a joke, some twisted game I’m playing with myself!”

“I feel like you’re right here,” Fareeha said, closing her eyes tightly. There was no use trying to avoid tears. The burning weight in her chest that twisted and competed against the sheer joy of seeing her love again were beyond processing. “The Anubis part of me, I don’t think plays tricks like this.”

“But you don’t know what time, the terrible things I did, what it all did to me.” Angela lifted her head to look at her, eyes red and watery. “I never thought I’d become her when I…” Her hand lifted up, and she cupped Fareeha’s face tenderly, as though it were something fragile, and let her thumb drift over the udjat below her eye.

“You never tell me when we’re awake,” Fareeha said quietly, leaning into her hand. The warmth was simple and comforting, somehow more wholesome than the realization that haunted her.

Things clicked into place, and Fareeha let out a slow breath, biting her lip. She lifted her arm opposite Angela, and pulled it slowly up to her hair, returning the gentle caress. Angela’s eyes closed as she lifted her head ever so slightly into the touch and sucked in her lips to keep her crying from being more evident.

The hand pulled, bringing their lips together gently. It was simple, soft contact, but brought a blossoming fulfilment that took over their hearts. It was a sensation sorely missed, nearly forgotten by the pair. Time seemed to lose some of its power, the moment stretching, lasting beyond what seemed possible.

Finally, they parted reluctantly. Fareeha opened her eyes slowly, ochre meeting blue again. She opened her mouth to speak, but Angela looked down, horror creeping into her face.

“You’re covered in-“ Angela shook her head and pulled herself onto her elbows, glancing down Fareeha’s form. “You’re hurt! Schätzli, you shouldn’t even be alive!” The last words were forced out with difficulty as she absorbed the extent of what she saw.

Fareeha had known she was in bad shape, though she only vaguely knew the form that it took.

“It’s just that whatever this is, Angela, it’s a reflection, I think,” she said slowly, unsure of how the knowledge came so easily to her. “When you brought me back from death, I think my spirit carried the wounds with it, and this is it.”

“I have to fix it,” Angela said, looking away. “It’s my fault, all of this, I have to do something to make you whole again. I wanted to have you back so badly, I did terrible things, and this is what it cost you.”

“Angela,” Fareeha said, gripping at her wrist with her good hand and squeezing, the tacit request she look at her in the gesture. Angela acquiesced, turning back to her. “Angela, I made a choice. I knew what you were offering was rigged, evil even, but I still said yes.”

“I made the situation, I helped it to take place, I-“ Fareeha’s finger pressed to Angela’s lips, halting her words. She could see the pain in her eyes, and it was not pain from the injuries she seemed to bear. She whispered against her finger quietly. “Why?”

“Because I failed, because I’m weak,” Fareeha said. “We all face tests, the philosophers say. Mei would tell me that we all end up being tested. That we would someday in our lives inevitably face some ultimate test of our morality.” She gave a pull against Angela’s shoulder, and the priestess let herself come down to lay against her side. Her weight and touch were featherlight, filled with concern and caution battling the need to be close. “In that moment, I threw away everything I spent my life working toward because even if you were evil, I just wanted one thing.”

“Don’t,” Angela warned, burying her face against the side of Fareeha’s chest. “Please.”

“You know why,” Fareeha compromised.

And Angela did.

Angela knew because it was the same reason she had done what she had.

To be with each other, no cost was too great when it came to the moment of decision. They simply had not had the chance to see that they were at the point they had to choose, originally.

“Fareeha, I have to tell you, while I can, while our true selves are asleep.” Angela looked up, her emotions unable to settle as she wore a smile through the streaks of wetness on her cheeks. “I was never tricked into becoming her, just like you. When I returned to Zurich…”

 

*** * * * ***

 

The priestess’s boots clacked noisily on the stone floor of the septum as she paced back and forth rapidly. Amidst the great room packed to the brim with bottles, vials, jars, microscopes, petri dishes, and other scientific and medical equipment, she was the only occupant. She was, after all, the High Priestess. Scarcely 19 years of age, and she was the most valued, highest ranked member of the entire Holy Order short of the council of bishops that gave guidance.

Nervousness wound in her gut as she stopped at one of the tables, resting her hands on her notes and slumping forward over them, trying to steady herself. Her hands were shaking. Only two times could she remember her hands shaking. The day her parents had been lost in the great war, and the day she had met her.

Her.

She was a constant in the priestess’s mind, and she had met her only a month ago.

How could she even describe Fareeha Amari? The raven hair, the brown skin that shone in the sun, her tattoo that proclaimed her spirit so boldly as a protector – The muscles and smile certainly had not hurt, either. Then there were her eyes, and the way they had met, her blue to Fareeha’s beautiful ochre.

Never had she experienced a feeling like that in her life. The priestess still could feel her heart go haywire. She had barely had the courage to hand her scarf over to her when she won the final bout of the tournament, and been left not even a moment to talk to her again after Reinhardt swooped her up in tales of glory and battle in the name of Justice.

It was a pang of annoyance that haunted her at that. She had met Fareeha only a few months before, and those chances to talk, sincere time through which they connected so strongly over their shared essences and principles. What had at first seemed in conflict had been the opposite. Justice, and mercy; perfect complements. Then there was the picnic. The sun, the grass, the shade of the trees, and the kiss.

She would have lived that moment over a thousand times if she were able.

It seemed that was not going to be an option, as she heard boots on the hardened floor that echoed ominously in the chamber.

 _Funny_ , she thought _. I always used to welcome that sound. I guess it’s a lot different when you fall out of favor with the Cardinal_. She tugged the hem of her top down, a simple white and gold trimmed vest over her proper yellow and orange trimmed robe that seemed to embody the sun’s warm light.

“High Priestess Ziegler,” said the middle of three men heading for Angela, perfectly abreast and possessed of proud posture that bordered on arrogance. She had known him for five years, and despite the impression he gave, he had always been possessed of great compassion. It did nothing to assuage her, though.

 _Of course you’d send three to talk to me instead of just doing it yourself,_ Angela thought irritably. She straightened her back and turned to face them, frowning.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Herr Gneiss,” Angela greeted them, her voice possessed of the same cheer and kindness that was her signature.

“Feigned innocence is a most unsuitable trait for a member of our esteemed order,” replied the man, similarly blond to the priestess. He was of a similar height as well but seemed to possess a considerable bulk in muscle. “You know why we’ve come. I thought we had dropped the matter of your pursuing this distasteful connection to the young knight girl, and here we find you’ve not only tried to have something sent out to her, but worse.”

“Oh? What worse have I done than try and express my concern for a fellow human being?” Angela’s eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms. Beneath her robes, her foot tapped nervously as she tried to keep her heart rate down. _It’s too early for this. I still need time._

“Is that not enough? You know these things are not approved. No attachments may be maintained by members who seek to advance in our order, and you are well beyond the level where this may be overlooked.” Gneiss sneered and shook his head. “But that is not why I am here. I originally thought to question you, but I do not believe that will be necessary. You admit to one offense, and that is enough. You will await in the undercroft library. The Bishop himself will come to attend to your judgment, and not even alone. Quite an honor.” The sarcasm was palpable, dripping from his words.

“And when is this to happen? I have appointments and I’d really hate to have my schedule ruined.” With one hand she had begun tapping her fingers rhythmically against her upper arm, rolling her eyes in impatience. _Could be worse, I suppose_. If they were choosing that place to meet her, it meant they wanted no further whisper of the entire affair to ever escape. To totally bury the problem. That left two possibilities. Either they would seek her confession and a statement of compliance, or they would remove her – from the world of the living, she suspected.

“Three, tonight. Your retinue has been reassigned and will not be joining you. I would’ve suggested you drop your foolish attachment to that woman, as well, but it is too late, now. Perhaps you could have a better outcome with a clean conscience, though? I’m sure the Bishop will have an entertaining evening with you.”

The men turned, and moved away at a hurried pace to a sneer at their backs.

When the doors closed in their wake with a reverberating thud, Angela shivered. She could sense it, more than see it; the foreboding sensations that heralded coalescing darkness that flowed along the floor.

 _How did this even happen?_ Angela asked herself, grinding her jaw in frustration. _Never once did I run afoul of their rules, and all it takes is showing interest in someone? Two months of being treated like a fugitive? Being treated like a dog by the Justicar? Do you not understand what you’ll make me do?_

She turned to see the darkness swirl upward, taking on humanoid shape. A white mask, styled like a bleak owl promising a grim fate, faced her.

“Do you wish that I deliver her to you?” The black-hooded figure’s voice was raspy, sardonic. “I could easily make sure you were never separated again.”

“No! No.” Angela ran a hand through her hair, letting out an exasperated sigh. “I will find a way to get to her myself. I just need the knowledge, the power, to escape this prison.”

“That kind of power will come at a cost.”

“I understand. If it comes to it, I accept it.”

“What happened to your earlier reluctance?” The shadow almost seemed amused, but the slow, steadying breath and frigid frown in response earned a quiet chuckle from the being. “Then I will know when you accept, and you shall have your power,” it replied, satisfied. If there was doubt about how things would play out, for its part, it showed no signs of entertaining it. “Ever pleased to do business with one of your stature.”

“An honor, I’m sure,” she replied, but the darkness had already burst and begun to swirl away along the ground, vanishing behind bookshelves and areas darkened by flickering candlelight. A sigh passed her lips, her fingertips pinching the bridge of her nose as she tried to rub away some of the tension coursing through her body. She did not allow herself more than a few moments of respite, though.

There were preparations that had to be made.

The day continued onward, and for many, it was the same as any other day for millions of people.

Cold, carved stone columns extended for hundreds of feet in even measure all around, filling the ancient conference chamber. The center, where she stood, was raised, with an old altar built atop it. Decorated with rich red cloth and candles, it was resplendent. The room was built for masses of worshippers to seek shelter in the darkest, most dangerous of times, the heavy rock that made the place enduring and strong.

Footsteps echoed, a crowd approaching. It was lighter than she expected, if they meant to approach her and oppose her magic, even as generally peaceful as it often was. Her blue eyes narrowed, as she turned to face the oncoming group.

“Ja, of course you would,” the High Priestess muttered under her breath. The Bishop approached, along with the deacons on either side. His white and gold robes were not dissimilar from those Mercy wore. His eyes swept over the altar, at the ritual accoutrements she had placed upon it.

“Such a symbolic choice, my Lady Ziegler,” the Bishop said, bowing as he came to a halt. His gray eyes were slate, cold and unfeeling as he never let his gaze leave her. “Is that level of dramatics necessary?”

“You tell me, Bishop.” Angela smirked and shrugged a shoulder, chin lifting as she let the insult echo in the halls. “You seem more preoccupied with my personal interests than my work.”

“You impudent ingrate, you would dare bring that up?” The Bishop’s chill demeanor vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by barely checked rage. “People like you are the ones that bring us shame, it is through no fault of my own. You so quickly resort to disrespect, flinging filth indiscriminately!”

“I am surprised you could distinguish filth thrown at you from what you originate,” Angela spat back. “You are here to judge me again for kissing a woman? Then your hypocrisy should be judged as well.”

“Lamont, bring them in,” the Bishop snapped, looking to one of the deacons with them, who nodded and looked back. A beckoning gesture from his gauntlet let to the same horde of footsteps resuming.

“Ah,” Angela said, frowning, “so that’s your plan, hm?” The sight made her breath catch in her chest as doubt seized her heart. She hid it well, but she had compassion. Indeed, it was one of the things she felt most keenly.

Compassion for children. Orphans of war. She desperately wanted to care for the ones who had been and would be left behind by the conflicts that her lover would be throwing herself into in search of redemption and justice. Dozens of them stood huddled around a cadre of knights, clothed in white and red, colors of the order – the garb of those who would be inducted into the organization.

“Watch your words, Ziegler,” the Bishop said. “These children will remember your end the rest of their lives, and explain to the adoring public your repentance and sacrifice for your moral failings.” His hands were clenched around his staff. The holy accessories seemed out of place against the angry vein and sweat beading on his face.

“Very well,” Angela said, letting out a sigh. “There truly is no other choice, if these are the depths to which you would resort.” Her voice was nearly inaudible, but when her eyes locked on the Bishop again, they were narrowed and filled with a hateful intensity that made the deacons step back. “So I’m to understand you mean to surround me and make me confess, then I am to take my own life to fit a convenient story for you to tell the faithful? I am to waste my life and talent so that you can conjure a fiction about the necessity of chastity from your own ass?” The words were bile to her, the thought of such a thing anathema to her soul. Not only would she have let down herself, but Fareeha as well.

“This is no lesser of two evils choice. You are no divinity, you are no better than a pig, wallowing in mud.”

“You defy us?” The Bishop’s response betrayed true shock; he was not a man who was acquainted with being told no. Perhaps even subtle disagreement was not something he could accept. To be rebuked by someone of lower station was inconceivable. “Even before these tragic souls, who share your hard past?” He gestured toward them with a wide sweep of his staff. “You would come to blows and try to flee before them, and tarnish your legacy?”

“They’ll expose the truth of what you’ve done.” Angela’s armor flared as the white and gold wings spread and granted her lift. She pushed upward. She could not fly of her own power, but she could jump high and glide well. “Run, children! They’re using you and they will hurt you!” She landed before them, wings flaring with energy as her momentum halted. “Run!”

First it was one, then two, and then more who looked up with mixed reverence and surprise. Then several dozen children were running, fleeing back for the doors where they had been led in. She winced and closed her eyes for a split second, screaming and crying reaching her ears. She wanted no trauma for them, but it was the only way to keep them from being pawns.

“Deacons, stop them! By any means necessary.” The Bishop’s furious shout caused the two armored men just behind him to turn and rush past Angela. He struck his staff against the ground, the white and gold trimmed artifact glimmering with energy drawn from its magitech power cells. “You are but one priestess, no matter how brilliant, before the Bishop of Zurich. What can you possibly do?”

Angela turned slowly, to look over her shoulder at the Bishop.

The blue iris, the core of the eye that glared at him, brightly flashed with white-lavender flame.

“Let us see, hm?” Angela growled out the response to the challenge, and then smashed her staff down. The holy Caduceus staff, the symbol of her purity and beneficent journey in life, struck the ground with an unnaturally reverberating crack. “I accept.” She lifted her hand quickly as golden light swirled and coalesced to arcane gestures at her fingertips.

The soulful yellow energy sputtered and dimmed. Crackling fury blossomed outward in its place, violet lightning surging across her body.

“You have committed your soul to acts of darkness,” the Bishop roared and lunged forward, the staff brought down with both hands toward Angela with an audible slice through the air. It carried deadly force, enough to break bones and snap necks, enhanced by the technology imbued in it. Technology Angela had pioneered. That she had created.

It healed the wounded.

It boosted the strength of warriors and weapons.

Angela caught it in one black, glove covered hand.

The arcing energy continued to leap wildly across her, obscuring her body from sight and creating a violent storm of light in the chamber, launching terrifying shadows in all directions that danced wildly.

“You’ve left me nothing but to accept.” She clenched her fingers into the Bishop’s weapon and it shattered, pieces of synthetic material and metal showering around them. Sparks skittered along the stone like fiery insects fleeing in every direction. “But I’m afraid it will not be my soul paying the debt.”       

“It will, there is always a cost,” the Bishop snarled as he recoiled, falling back onto the ground with a puff of dust. “You will pay! We will hunt you down!”

“You will be beyond dead,” Angela promised simply. The erupting power around her narrowed and tightened, tracing across her body. Her armor remade itself, dismissing the themes of dawn and light. They had been traded for unnatural purple and cold, synthetic gray trimming the white. Arching horns reached up, and a white tail with black ridges had begun to sway behind her as if she were a stalking predator.

The power around her made her short, lavender hair sway like grass in the wind, while her eyes of glowing purple fixated on the Bishop. Her hips matched her tail, swaying in a smooth gait as she looked down at him derisively. The armor had shifted its shape, hugging and accentuating, as if she were a devil from some twisted limbo. She bit at her lip, tongue touching what she found was a fang, and relished in the moment with a dark smirk.

“You see, Reisz, even before I knew this meeting was coming, I knew the costs. Souls. Souls that you have forced me to take. Forced me to use to fight your tyranny of thought,” she growled out, teeth clenched. Her outstretched hand, still clad in black glove but trimmed in white, drew near the Bishop. “You push your old and unfounded morality upon all of us and take everything in return, so you are going to lose everything. You want infamy, and you will have it, but you will not get to appreciate it.”

Claws dug into his collar as she yanked him toward her.

For a moment, they were nearly nose to nose, her dark painted lips curled in a smirk as she seemed to hover over the floor several inches.

“I hope it hurts.”

She flung him back with a dismissive flick of her wrist. Ribbons of light tore from his chest, coalescing in her grip and solidifying into the flame of a soul that tore through the air with an audible hiss.

It was not alone. More orbs of light, each a baleful omen of an owner’s fate, snapped out and came from different directions. Like a swarm of fireflies, they cast a pallid glow on the stone.

“This is my reward,” she said, as they swirled in a torrent above the palm of her hand, claws gleaming. “Weeks of planning, months of research, when I figured out how underhanded you could be. How you could casually betray me and hurt me because my feelings were inconvenient.”

Scorch marks and chunks of stone had been torn free, nothing that could obstruct them as she called out to them. The room was in ruins.

Angela laughed, an unmitigated giggle of pure joy bursting from her lips.

“How many guards and soldiers, Reisz? How many did you think you would need to murder an innocent priestess?” There was a moment for breath, before she simply fell back into laughter, barely able to speak through it. “And it wasn’t enough! You stupid fuck, you disgusting bastard! In fact, I think for a start, I’m going to make sure the Schweitzer family ceases to exist.”

Lowering her hand, Angela watched the rotating cloud of souls in her grasp, and licked her lips. There was a strange tug in her chest. An incessant craving deep within, which she quickly recognized as a hunger. It was hunger unlike anything she had ever known, buried deep inside her heart. It was a need that coursed through her and demanded it be sated.

And so she breathed in. She breathed not just the air, not just with her lungs, but with her spirit, pulling inward. She felt them lights of the souls crumble before her, the wispy essences of the dead flowing into her nose and mouth.

“Perfect,” the once-priestess groaned as everything flowed into her. “Delightful.” Angela let them all stream into her, fortifying her, bolstering her own spirit and fueling it. Her awareness grew, expanding out, and she could see beyond the dimness and weak light. She saw the flicker of essences beyond the great chamber, both above and below. Essences weak and dying, essences strong and vibrant, they all called out to her.

“More.”

The foundations shook.

Zurich’s holiest cathedral shuddered and ruptured in magical flame, magitech batteries and storage erupting as souls perforated them full of holes and unstable power. The entire city shook, as smoke and flame lanced into the night sky, turning it orange and black as the moon hid behind them.

In the resulting darkness, Angela Zeigler knelt amidst the crumbling remains of what had been the grandest place in all of the city. Dusty smoke drifted lazily in every direction, dozens of piles of smoldering debris unwilling to fade quite yet. She dared not willfully move a muscle, yet her whole body shuddered. The dust and floating embers dared not land on the pristine white and black of her garb, but the tears…

The tears landed quietly on her knees as she buried her face in her hands.

“Gods, what have I done?” A slow, shuddering breath filled her lungs. “Fareeha will never forgive me.”

 

*** * * * ***

 

“So, she told you while we were asleep,” the Imp said, arms crossed as she stared out over the edge of a balcony, eyes drifting along snow drifts in a windswept valley. Her focus was not the pristine, newly fallen snow or the crisp chill of the wintery day. She was lost in the nothingness of the bleak white sky.

Anubis lifted her chin and rubbed at one of her fangs with her tongue, testing the sharp incisor in consideration. She furrowed her brow lightly and exhaled slowly when she realized she had been holding her breath, a forgotten but familiar tenseness in her chest that ached.

“You told me,” Anubis said, voice quiet but unsilenced by the gusty wind.

“That remorseful, weak child is not me,” the Imp hissed, turning to look up at Anubis. Her eyes gleamed with an arcane blue behind them, glaring from underneath the brim of her wide, pointed hat. “It was my secret.” There was fury in her gaze. Fury, and hurt.

Anubis turned her eyes, inquisitive and aglow with the sharp gold of her power, to meet the Imp face to face. She lifted her hand, bare fingers gently catching at her chin as if to tell her not to look away.

“It was mine to forget. How was I to know how you’d react?”

“You know their feelings aren’t ever going to vanish.” Anubis frowned slightly, the faintest quirk downward of the side of her mouth. “We can push them down as much as we like, but that humanity is still there.”

“And I despise it,” the Imp snapped, pulling back and letting her wings flare up, the wooden look of her disguise and eerie yellow wings of ethereal power shielding her.

“I admit it can be distracting at times, but you have put it aside just as much as I have.” The Egyptian being turned, leaning forward to prop herself on her forearms as she looked over the valley. “Look at this. A man makes a bargain with you, and betrays it, so you call down winter.”

Anubis laughed to herself, quietly, and shook her head.

“I sometimes almost fear your power, though…” She trailed off, words gone in favor of a satisfied smirk.

“You’re one to talk of high prices,” the Imp said, turning back to look at her reluctantly. She had to keep her hand on her head to keep the hat from flying away, even with the magic that disguised her as a witch. “I had no idea when this began that your wrath was a viable form of penalty for a failed pact.”

“Ah, you mean what happened in Warsaw,” Anubis said, with a slow nod. The smirk did not diminish.

“You know I loved you from the day they met,” the Imp said, drifting up behind her, drawing so close her hips pressed to Anubis’s smooth rear, presented as it was with her lazy lean to look over what had once been fertile farmland. “I care little for what I have done, but I worry about what I’ve encouraged you to do, sometimes.”

“No you don’t,” Anubis said, pushing herself upward to stand straight again. She reached behind her and took the Imp’s hands, who willingly obliged as she pulled them in around her waist so they remained close.

The Imp winced at the words, pressing her face into the back of Anubis’s shoulder, and could not help but sigh.

“You’re right. I don’t.”

Anything was an acceptable price to be together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have several things I'm working on; I'm hoping to update this and my Talon!Pharmercy AU once a month each. We'll see how it goes!

**Author's Note:**

> Please let us know if you liked our writing, and feel free to leave any constructive criticism in comments here or in asks at our tumblrs, including if you spy a missing tag:  
> http://archaema.tumblr.com/ (NSFW http://shadysuccubus.tumblr.com/)  
> http://offkeelworld.tumbr.com/


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